The U.S. imposes financial fatherhood upon men who did nothing more than have sex. That effort in practice has largely been driven through welfare programs for poor families. In 1975, women who applied for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) were required to identify the biological father of each of their children. Irrespective of each man’s prior relationship with the woman or the child, he was then subject to a major monthly levy called “child support.” In 1996, welfare reform replaced AFDC with Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). TANF set explicit targets, incentives, and rewards for states to establish paternity for children of welfare recipients. Assignment of paternity and imposition of financial fatherhood provides alternative, off-budget financing for TANF welfare payments to mothers with children.[1]
To support off-budget financing of welfare to women, federal law attaches great importance to establishing biological paternity. If the mother does not provide names of men with whom she had sex and who biologically could be fathers of her children, then the state must reduce her TANF payment by 25% and may cut off the TANF payment completely. Moreover, states must succeed in establishing paternity in 90% of TANF cases.[2] These requirements naturally encourage undue influence, misrepresentation and mis-service in official processes for establishing biological paternity. The requirements to establish biological paternity aren’t part of a general policy of establishing biological paternity as a social fundamental. The paternity-identification requirements reflect only narrow interest in extracting money from men.
State-imposed financial fatherhood and lack of concern for planned parenthood for men should astonish anyone who doubts the reality of gynocentrism.
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Read more:
- misrepresentation in judging paternity in Shondel J. v. Mark D.
- government-imposed sex payments provide highly unequal child support
- Judge William J. Brennan on legal suppression of paternity knowledge
Notes:
[1] Guggenheim (2005), p. 60, observes:
The requirement that unwed {biological} fathers support their {biological} children was not imposed because of a shared sense that children deserved to be supported or that {biological} fathers had a duty to support them.
Federal fiscal concerns explain the large federal program to impose financial obligations on unwed, biological fathers. Id. pp. 61-2. Fiscal concerns and gynocentrism also explain lack of concern for fairness and truth in legally determining paternity.
[2] Solomon-Fears (2013) p. 3.
References:
Guggenheim, Martin. 2005. What’s wrong with children’s rights. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Solomon-Fears, Carmen. 2013. Child Support Enforcement: Program Basics. Congressional Research Service. Sept. 12, 2013.